The comedian, who has cultivated a persona of irritability, hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend (Feb. 6), reprising his role as the sometimes-irritable US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
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In total, the David show drew a 2.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which basically means that the show did better than nearly every other comedy on TV this past week.
Prior to the Sanders cameo, David played the senator in a pre-recorded bit, titled “bern your enthusiasm”.
Also during the program, Sanders directed a “Bern Your Enthusiasm” skit, based on David’s popular show “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. There was the narrow loss to Hillary Clinton in Iowa on Monday, an MSNBC debate with Clinton on Thursday, and on Saturday night, he entered a new realm of prominence in politics and pop culture with an appearance on Saturday Night Live. David is a former writer for SNL, having written for the show for a season in the 80s (where he famously only ever had one sketch make it to air). If ever there was a reason to vote for Bernie: it would give us four more years of Larry David. The sketch begins with Bernie Sanders at a rally shaking the hands of his supportes; when one supporter coughs into her hand, Bernie refuses to shake it which causes a massive scene and draws the ire of several people in the crowd.
At that, Sanders appeared, saying he was sick of the top 1 percent getting all of the advantages, echoing his campaign’s call for the super-rich not to get so many benefits in society.
“Who are you?” David asked.
“I am Bernie Sanderswitzky”. When Sanders argues with his campaign staff, we are treated to a flawless J.B. Smoove impression by Jay Pharoah while Taran Killam channels the raspy Bob Einstein voice as a reference to the Marty Funkhauser character on Curb.
Sanders strayed into one area he has been somewhat less comfortable exploring – the place of his Jewish identity in American society – when he recalled that his family’s name had once been “Sandersowsky, but we’re going to change it when we get to America so it doesn’t sound so Jewish”. David knows where his bread is buttered: Atop Sanders’ shiny dome.
“Yeah, that will trick them”, David shot back to laughter. In the sinking ship sketch, Sanders also noted that there is a “huge” difference between socialism and Democratic socialism.
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“So Bernie, how are things going up in New Hampshire?”, David asked.
